Heroes
by thebrownclown
Summary: James and Lily discuss the war as Lily prepares Christmas dinner. Disaster ensues. Written for the Jily Secret Santa 2012 over on Tumblr


A/N: Characters belong to Good old J.K. and the title and lyrics come from "Heroes" by Mika

In the winter of 1978, Godrics Hollow had a record-breaking snowfall; the heaviest in living memory. The entire village turned white overnight, and all the

businesses and shops closed down a week before Christmas, making it difficult for the town procrastinators to buy gifts. The streets and alleys were blanketed

with snow, and often passerby would carry umbrellas to better protect themselves from the sheets of snow wobbling precariously on the rooftops. The snow

was so thick that seeing more than five feet in front of you was impossible, and the wind was so loud that you would have to shout to be heard by any

companions you might have. The dwellers of Godrics Hollow, both muggle and wizard alike, stayed inside during the week before Christmas, preferring sipping

hot chocolate and reading by the fire to braving the winter storm raging outside. The citizens locked their shutters up tight and drew their windows shut; they

baked bread in their ovens and set up the Christmas trees. Whether magical or muggle, everyone stayed in-doors.

In one such cottage, with a sloping roof and a charming back garden, Lily Evans was preparing Christmas Eve dinner.

Or attempting to. She was silently cursing her decision to bet James on whether she could make dinner the muggle way. She had always been

stubborn, but sometimes it really got out-of-hand.

_Maybe I could just order something in…_she mused, as she removed the mashed potatoes from the oven. Lily yelped, remembering just then that it

was a good policy to wear oven mitts whilst removing things from the oven. She gritted her teeth as she ran to put her hands under the running sink.

"Shit, shit shit," she muttered to herself. This wouldn't have been so bad if James hadn't insisted on taking her wand to make sure she didn't cheat.

Lily had been so sure that she could do this the muggle way, the _normal way. _But, alas, the last time she had prepared anything without magic had been when

she was on summer holiday when she was fifteen, and her mother had been away. And that had been a frozen dinner.

She sighed in relief as her burning hand began to be soothed by the ice-cold water flowing from the tap. Lily switched off the water and glanced

around at the small kitchen. It was tiny and cramped and the walls were a crimson that made her blend in with them. The counters were cluttered with pots

and pans and she had three muggle recipe books, swiped from Petunia's things once their parents had died, propped open near the sink. Lily grinned. Though

the kitchen and the cottage weren't perfect, they were _hers._ She had been very adamant to James that she did not want to simply live off of his fortune once

they graduated. She had gotten an entry-level position at the Department of International Magical Cooperation, and had quickly risen up to the Head of

International Floo Regulation. Lily had bought her own cottage and worked for everything she owned because, as she had told at the end of their seventh year,

when the proposal first came of them moving in together, that she was an Evans, and Evans's do not need a man to take care of them.

Lily grinned at the memory of her mother telling her that when she was eight and had her first boyfriend. Though Tommy Reynolds had been a very

attentive companion, eight-year-old Lily had taken her mother's advice to heart, and broke up with him. The same advice had come throughout the years of

her friendship with Snape, even with adamant protests that they were Just Friends, and again, when she had dated Amos Diggory, who had been her first Real

Boyfriend, in her fifth year. Her mother had never gotten the chance to dole out the phrase when she began dating James, however, since she died a year

before they went out. However, Lily was proud to be honoring her mother's time-tested-independent-woman advice, while navigating her relationship with her

James.

Lily grabbed an oven mitt and tackled the mashed potatoes again, this time emerging unscathed.

She walked over to the sink and began slicing vegetables, and was so engrossed in trying not to slice her hand open that she didn't hear the front door

to her cottage open, or the heavy footfalls through the hallway.

"Evans."

"AUGH," she screamed, slicing her hand open. Lily whirled around, holding her bleeding hand in the other. "James! Merlin you scared me." He grinned, and,

taking sight of her injury, walked over to her, wand outstretched.

He grabbed her hand gently, and turned it over to the cut. His wand touched the opening, and then it was sealed, with only a faint pink line to show for

it. He bent his head and touched his lips to it. "Better?"

Lily glowered. "That wouldn't have been necessary had I had my wand." She turned back to the vegetables and began slicing again. She heard James

chuckle from behind her, and felt his arms wrap around her, his nose buried in her hair.

"You're right. It also wouldn't have been necessary had you not been so bloody stubborn and insisted on doing something that, apparently, is quite

beyond you." As he said this, James surveyed the cluttered kitchen. "There is literally no surface left untouched."

Lily turned to stick her tongue out at him, and then resumed the cutting of her vegetables.

"I don't care what you say, James Potter. I am making Christmas Eve dinner and you will eat it and you will like it."

James grinned, and sat down at the kitchen table with a thump. "Feisty."

"Necessary," Lily flung back.

James smiled, and the pair fell into a companionable silence; Lily slicing vegetables and James fiddling with the record player sitting on the kitchen table.

"What've you been listening to?"

"Hmm?"

"Music. What have you been listening to?" repeated James.

Lily glanced up. "Oh, it's just this song Marlene found when she was shopping in London."

James placed the needle upon the record, and sat back, listening.

**_The kids in the hundreds tomorrow_**

**_Will march through the door_**

**_They're fighting someone else's war_**

His eyes rose up and met Lily's. "Do you ever feel like we're fighting someone else's war, Lil?"

Lily kept her bright, emerald eyes on his burning hazel ones. "I don't think so, James." He nodded. "If anything, I'm fighting my war. This war is about

me and my kind and the persecution we face. This war is about us being outsiders in two worlds. I don't belong in the muggle world because of my magic, but I

don't belong in the magical world because of my muggle-ness."

The corners of James's mouth quirked up at this. "Muggle-ness?"

"Yes, muggle-ness," said Lily defensively. "As in pertaining to the state and amount of muggle."

"Oh, is that so," said James playfully, standing up and striding towards Lily.

She grinned. "Yes, it is s—" But James's lips crashing down on hers cut her off. His arms encircled her, and lifted her up off her feet and set her on the counter,

which was, unfortunately, occupied with a pan soaking in water.

"AUGH," screeched Lily, scrambling to get out of the soapy water. She did manage to get out, but that landed her on the floor, with the water spilling on

top of her head.

Lily sat there in silence for a few moments while James started laughing. Even sitting on her floor, bruised and soapy and wet, Lily couldn't help but be

thinking of how much she loved his laughter; it always started out as a low chuckle, something dark and almost cynical-sounding, before escalating the octaves

and becoming a full on throaty guffaw. His laughter was like drugs to her, even as she sat there, completely soaked.

Once James was done wiping the tears from his eyes, he bent down and scooped Lily up into his arms. "Sorry, love." He said cheekily. "I guess it's

pretty easy to get you wet, huh?" James winked.

Lily rolled her eyes. "So are you going to give me my wand back or can you just dry me off? Because, if you haven't noticed, I'm freezing." The redhead

was indeed trembling, and her lips had turned a violent shade of blue.

"You know, the fastest way to warm up is to remove all clothing and snuggle," said James seductively.

"That would've been a whole lot more sexy if you hadn't said snuggle," said Lily. "Okay, please, now, dry me off."

James raised his wand and muttered the spell. It felt like she had just stepped into the desert; a breeze of hot, humid air washed over her and dried

her clothes and hair.

"Thanks," she grinned. "Now stop distracting me. If you haven't noticed, I'm cooking Christmas dinner."

"Will this Christmas dinner be edible?" asked James, sitting down once more, and replaying the record. Lily threw a carrot at him. "Ouch, okay,

kidding."

James continued to look at Lily as she returned, once again, to the chopping of the vegetables. With the soft sounds of the record playing in the

background and the rhythmic knife movements, Lily was content to just carry on like this; no war, no death, no blood; just James and records and Christmas.

"Hey, Lil."

"Hmm?"

"About what you were saying earlier…"

"Yeah?"

James took a deep breath. "About how this is your war. You kind of made it seem like…I don't know, like you wouldn't be fighting it if it wasn't yours."

Lily paused in her chopping. She started down into the sink, not really seeing the sliced vegetables.

"Does that make me horribly selfish?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"Oh, no love," said James consolingly. "It's perfectly understandable."

"It's just…" began Lily, whose eyes had started to prickle. "It's just that I don't want to be apart of this. I don't want to be in the Order and I don't

want to be turned away from restaurants and I don't want to be inferior but I am. I _am._ That's the whole point. I don't want any of this but I am forced into it.

I am forced into this goddamn war because of my blood and because of whom I was born as. Does that mean that if I had been born a pure- or half-blood that

I wouldn't be fighting? I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea." Lily's face had become streaked with tears and James stood up and gathered her into a hug.

She wrapped her arms around him so tightly, like she was afraid that he would float away.

The pair stood there for a long time, wrapped up in each other, each drinking in the other, and neither wanting to break apart.

**_And you don't understand_**

**_Why no one else can see_**

**_Your blood on me_**

**_And my blood on you_**

**_But to make you bleed_**

"I'm not like you, James," came Lily's voice, muffled against his chest. "I can't fight someone else's war…I just—"

"Wait, what," said James, drawing back slightly from his girlfriend. "What did you say?"

"I can't fight someone else's war?"

"Lily, oh, _Lily_, darling. I'm not fighting anyone else's war."

Lily looked at him questioningly; the silent tears still cascading down her face. James took her delicate face in his hands, and brushed back the red hair

that had fallen into her eyes. "I'm not fighting someone else's war, and I don't know if I could or would. All I know is that right here, and right now, I am

fighting my own war. Any war of yours is a war of mine, my love. I love you, with all my heart, and I have since we were sixteen years old. I want to spend the

rest of my, however long or short, life with you, and the only reason I haven't married you and carried you off into the sunset where we could live in a cottage

and have ten little Potter babies is because of that whole independent-woman she-bang that you always go on about." James stroked her cheek. "I will follow

you into Hell, my love. Anywhere and anytime. All my heart…I love you with all my heart and that will never change."

If Lily had been crying before, she began to have wracking sobs after this admission. James smiled and wrapped his arms around her once more,

breathing in the deep scent of her lemon shampoo.

After quite sometime, Lily had finished crying, and looked up, wiping her eyes.

"Sorry," she grinned meekly.

James kissed the hollow of her temple. "It's alright, love. I don't think I've ever seen you cry like that."

Lily grinned. "I never _have _cried like that." She gave a watery chuckle, and reached up and kissed James lightly on the mouth. "I love you, Potter."

He grinned. "I love you too, Evans."

Lily could've stayed there forever, but she heard a ding go off behind her.

"The turkey!" she yelped, and grabbed an oven mitt as she rushed over to the oven, which James had had installed specifically for this dinner. Lily

speculated that James could really get anything he wanted, especially with the money that he had.

She reached in gingerly and took out the turkey.

"Hey, that doesn't look too bad!" said James. She sighed.

"You don't have to lie," she said with a small smile on her face. And indeed, he was lying. Over the course of its time in the oven, the turkey had become black

and shriveled, and no longer even resembled meat.

Lily out her head in her hands. "AUGH."

James came to her and started rubbing her shoulders. "It's perfectly alright."

"I lost the bet," said Lily ruefully.

James grinned. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I have never seen anyone mess up an animal _that _badly so, props to you for that."

Lily chuckled. "All jokes aside, buddy, we still need something to eat, and all we have are those vegetables that I have, by this time, completely mutilated."

"Actually," said James. "I took the liberty of bringing a Christmas feast that the house elves prepared." He nodded towards the hallway, were Lily could

see a picnic basket on the floor.

She raised an eyebrow. "Did you know I would fail?"

James seemed to shrink under his girlfriend's formidable glare. "No…I just wanted to be prepared…just in case."

Lily rolled her eyes, and walked to the hallway and snatched the basket. "Come on then, let's eat."

And so, they ate. They had not a care in the world besides each other, and heard not a sound but the record that kept repeating, and saw nothing but

the love and passion burning in each other's eyes; even as the threat of their war hanging over their heads, the pair ate on, each worrying only about the

other, and allowing themselves a few moments peace, before they returned to their war, and before they became heroes.

**_And you know heroes aren't meant to survive_**

**_So much harder to love when alive_**

**_Walk with the devil in your head_**

**_You would think you were better off dead_**

**_A/N:_**I am not J.K. Rowling, I am just a simple follower. I wrote this for the Jily Secret Santa Tumble she-bang and the recipient of this was Katherine also known as chasingpadfoot on Tumblr, and, considering the circumstances I wrote it under, I am kind of proud of it. So, if you liked it, or if you hated it, review and let me know! This is the first fanfiction I have ever done in my life, and it is quite daunting to work with someone else's characters, but, I made it through. Merry Christmas Katherine!


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